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Favorite End of the Year Activities: Weekend Warriors Link Up

We all want our kiddos to leave us on the last day with the feeling that this was the BEST. YEAR. EVER. Special activities during the end of the year countdown will make the school year one the class will always remember!

The Weekend Warriors are here this month with a linky party to share some really neat end of the year activities. I can't wait to visit all of the blogs to get some new ideas to round up for my own list of fun things to do!

I'm here to tell you about my favorite EOY craft, a few fun indoor and outdoor activities and some easy to throw together, last-minute things I like to do with my class!

Since we have not started our end of the year celebration yet, I will be flashing back a little (or maybe a lot).

These activities have always been a HUGE hit!

Let's start with my all-time favorite end of the year project. This one is from a giant leap backward in time!This is what we made one year when I taught first grade:

It's a class keepsake pillowcase! Every child brought in a brand new pillowcase. I created the class photo, poem and student names template and printed them on iron-on transfer sheets. Parent helpers did the ironing.

Each student added their fabric paint thumbprint.

The poem says:

Now I lay me down to sleep,

I count these thumbprints instead of sheep.

And always remember the friends I made,

In Mrs. Moriconi's first grade.I loved this class so much! :) The firsties on my pillow are college kids now. Wow! Stop that clock!Now for some activities...

Here in Michigan, we make outdoor plans but always have an inside plan B in case we get rained out.

I'll start with some OUTDOOR FUN!

A favorite on a hot sunny day is a water balloon toss.

I am SO bad at tying balloons so we call on parents to come in to fill them. We pile the balloons up outside in big party tubs.

Partners start close together and with each toss take a step backward until SPLAT! Afterward, we fill the tubs with water and let the kiddos go crazy with those big dollar store water squirter tubes. The teachers run for cover!Some years, we schedule the ice cream truck to stop at the playground during our second grade picnic. Kona Ice is usually a favorite around here.

Speaking of picnics, this year it will be a hot dog cookout! On the menu will be chips, watermelon, beans, brownies for dessert and lemonade. YUMMY!We are going to have a lemonade tasting day and use this cute packet by my friend Aimee at Primarily Speaking.

I am so excited to try out these fun learning activities with my class!

We do try to keep the last days mostly academic!

INSIDE, we always have a movie day. While the students are enjoying the show, the teachers get things like printing report cards done! It's a lifesaver!

The children go to a classroom of their choice. We open four theaters, each showing a different full-length feature. We made tickets for the kids so we can still keep a normal class size during this time. Everyone enjoys some popcorn, Sprite and a large movie sized candy pack.

On the second to last day, we clean everything including the desks!

To make our shaving cream fun more academic, I call out spelling words, math problems or a category of things for the students to write or doodle.

Shaving cream must be a directed activity or we end up with more of a mess than when we started!

After the desks are cleaned, they get stacked and pushed to the outer walls.

This is the perfect set up for LAST DAY fun!

One of the many things we do is to make a giant circle and play a round of hot potato and pass the beach towel!

When the music stops, the person with the towel is out. They step to the outside of the circle and watch the rest of the game! No one even minds being out! Then, we have a hula hoop contest!

Before we say goodbye with HUGS or HIGH FIVES, we take a trip down memory lane with a slide show of photos from the year. Then, we Go Noodle to HAPPY while dismissals are called so the teacher doesn't cry!! I do anyway. Every year.This year we have added some new festivities because... believe it or not... it is MAP testing week. So, we are keeping the activities shorter, and easy to plan and manage.I am calling it our end of the year extravaganza!

On Monday, the students are invited to bring in their electronic devices from home. On that day, some siblings are coming to spend the day in our room. They earned a reward ticket to do so!

On Tuesday, we will sign beach balls and then play with them outside. If the yearbooks are here, we will sign them on this day too.Wednesday is bubble day. I picked up some one dollar bubble wands from Walmart. We are also letting the students CHEW GUM IN CLASS!!! They are getting Blow Pops!Thursday is a campout read-in. The students spread out blankets and read by flashlight. The others I told you about but switcharoo day is when the students rotate through all 4 of the second grade rooms and we each do a different activity like a game, craft or experiment. They love having a chance to see another room and mingle with other friends. We number the students 1-4 and assign a number to each room.After I made this schedule, we decided on board game day instead of switcharoo. This involves NO planning on our part, so it's perfect! I'm also thinking of making glitter dough with the kids! Call me crazy... but it's a tradition we ran out of time to do this year.

This would be before cleaning time and then the mess would just... disappear! The custodians will never know. Ha!Thanks so much for stopping by today! I hope you got a few new ideas here to use or Pin to save! Now, head on over to see what the rest of my Warrior friends are sharing on their blogs.

Please link up with us or leave a comment here with your favorite activity too!

4 comments:

Jeannine, what a fantastic post! Stocked full of fabulous ideas for EOY! I pinned everything! My head room mom is doing a drive-in movie themed set up for our last day! I am super excited to see how it turns out... Only two days left! Happy EOY!Hugs to you sweet friend!

Oh my goodness, Jeannine! As usual, you have a wealth of ideas. Excellent ideas! I love your movie day! I'll bet the kids feel like they actually went to the movies. That's awesome! We are doing a board game day next week, and the kids are so excited! And, of course, we are having our Lemonade Tasting as well! I'm so excited for your students to use that pack of activities! I will be pinning your ideas because they are so great and I don't want to forget them.